Stories of immigrants making good, like Elon Musk, can counter stereotypes—but they can also be daunting. Credit: Emily Shanklin Wikimedia

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On Jan. 26th, the public received notice of a new immigration-related executive order, describing the Trump administration’s plan to publish a weekly “list of criminal actions committed by aliens.” As psychologists, we immediately grew concerned that such a policy would fuel public fears and animosity towards immigrants by contributing to the stereotype that immigrants are dangerous. Research on the availability heuristic shows that the more easily examples of something come to mind, the more common we perceive that thing to be. Consequently, a weekly-published "removables" list could result in people overestimating both the likelihood of immigrants committing crimes and the extent to which most other Americans accept this generalization—a dangerous social norm that could increase hate crimes and violence against immigrants.

But what if information related to immigrants’ achievements were more prominent than information about crime?

To create a counterpoint to the statistically unfounded stereotype of immigrants as criminal, we used Twitter and Facebook to solicit immigrants’ stories under the hashtag #immigrantexcellence (inspired by the podcast The Read’s weekly segment, Black Excellence). Learning about people who defy your pre-existing stereotypes can reduce stereotyping and bias, so we sought to highlight immigrants’ achievement and resilience—their “excellence,” broadly defined to include a range of personal narratives and family histories. We specifically called for narratives because stories invite perspective-taking more than statistics do, and may be more likely to spur genuine engagement rather than defensive reactions.

We quickly realized, however, that such an enterprise could have unintended but harmful consequences. On Twitter, Kamil Hamid rightfully critiqued the hashtag for placing pressure on immigrants to signal their utility to U.S. Americans in order to justify their presence in the country. Because it focuses on how immigrants may be “used” to benefit the country, this kind of rhetoric fails to emphasize that immigrants are inherently deserving of inclusion, safety, and opportunity as human beings regardless of any prestige they may bring to the country.

Finally, while initial calls for stories sought to feature excellence at all levels of social status, many of the most virally-shared stories reflected traditional notions of success and prestige (e.g., Ivy League professorships). Consequently, potential contributors may have felt discouraged from sharing stories that didn’t fit this showcased form of “excellence.” The goal of debunking stereotypes is not to replace one extreme image with another, but to represent the full spectrum of a group’s humanity. That many of these stories are conventionally inspirational does not diminish the importance of amplifying and celebrating the voices of all immigrants, from professors and doctors to single parents and service workers.

So do enterprises like #immigrantexcellence hurt or help? This remains an empirical question we plan to address in the coming months, but we remain heartened by the ways in which many have shared their stories. Being immigrants or children of immigrants ourselves, we wanted to feature the very narratives that could get drowned out by those that demonize immigrants as a class of people (e.g., lists of “removables”). However, even the most effective platform for sharing narratives does not address the structural and institutional barriers immigrants face in the process of coming to, or making a life in the U.S. This can only be achieved through changes to the law and immigration policy, which requires the continued engagement of natural-born citizens and immigrants alike. In the meantime, we hope that people will continue to share their stories of inspiration and solidarity, and to participate in necessary, nuanced discussions about how to best uphold our cherished democracy in the years to come.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Joel E. Martinez

Joel Martinez is a Ph.D. student at Princeton University studying how impressions are formed within social interactions. He tweets about science and activism at @joealey

Lauren A. Feldman

Lauren Feldman is a Ph.D. student in social psychology at Princeton University. You can find her on Twitter @lauren__feld.

Mina Cikara

Mina Cikara is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Director of the Intergroup Neuroscience Lab at Harvard University. Her research examines the conditions under which groups and individuals are denied social value, agency, and empathy. Professor Cikara tweets about psychology and neuroscience at @profcikara.

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